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Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies

Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies

Visiting Scholars

Lilach Ben Zvi will be an Academic Visitor at the Institute in 2021 (May to December). Currently she is completing her doctorate at the University of Haifa. Focusing on the political theory of Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Lilach will examine the nature of the public sphere in Israel and the way it can serve as a battleground for different and contradictory world views about Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Her work contributes to discussions about the meaning of the public and private spheres as well as the promotion of an essential and active civil society in Israel.

Dr. Jonathan Ghariani will be an Academic Visitor at the Institute in 2021 (May to December). He received his PhD in 2020 from the University College London. His project is focused on the Madrid Multilateral Peace Process and the Era of Partial Normalization between Israel and the Peripheral Arab States (1992-2000). He will be conducting research on issues pertaining to the Arab Israeli Peace Process and the history of normalization of ties between Israel and several peripheral Arab states as well as also on issues related Israeli Foreign and Domestic policy.

Lihi Lahat (Fall 2018) is an Associate Professor at Sapir Academic College in the Department of Administration and Public Policy. Her papers have been published in journals such as Policy Sciences and Social Policy and Administration. Her areas of research are perceptions of poverty, regulation of social services, public officials’ trust and collaborative governance.

During her time at the Institute, she researched in order to publish the following articles:

Tali Tadmor Shimony (Spring 2018) is a senior lecturer of history of education at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.  She is a co-editor of Dor Ledor- Studies in the History of Jewish Education in Israel and the Diaspora. Her main interest cover issues of teachers identity; transfer of educational ideas from the western world to Hebrew education, gender and the Hebrew education; teachers identity and curriculum history.  

During her time at the Institute, Dr. Tadmor Shimony worked on this publication:  'Gender, Professional Identity, and Familial Life in the Yishuv Area: The Married Women Teachers,' Israel, in press) 26;1-19 [Hebrew] 

Eran Eldar (Fall 2016 - Spring 2017) completed his doctorate in Jewish history at Tel Aviv University. His thesis “The Urban Development of Tel Aviv in the Context of Inter-relations between Municipal and State Rule in the Twilight of the British Mandate and the First Decades of the State of Israel". His area of research is urbanization in Israel and Israeli society and politics in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

During his time at the Institute, he completed the following publications:

Gabriel Cavaglion (Summer 2016)  earned his PhD at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law with his dissertation: The Professional Discourse of Sexual Education in Israel.  He is a social worker, a certified Jungian psychotherapist and Associate Professor and Researcher in the School of Social Work and Department of Criminology at Ashkelon Academic College, Israel. His recent research focuses on social discourse, symbols archetypes, and issues related to cultural studies and social- cultural-religious deviance in Israeli society.

His researched at the Institute produced the following publications and speaking engagements:

  • The story of Lev Tahor Cult. Submitted to The Journal of Cultic Studies.
  • Member of academic board of Mid’a, Centre for the research of New Religious Movement in Israel, under the auspices of Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem 2017
  • Mussolini Gift of a Gifted People: Jewish migration to the US during the Italian Fascist Regime. Presented at the conference of Dahan Center, Ashkelon Academic College and Concordia University “Sefaradic, North African and Eastern Jews in North America”, Montreal, Canada, August, 2015.
  • "Is Lev Tahor a Cult?". CESNUR International Annual Conference, The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, July 2017.

Shawn Zelig Aster (Spring 2016) spent a semester with the Institute in March 2016.  He teaches Hebrew Bible and the history and geography of the Biblical period at Bar-Ilan University. He previously taught at Yeshiva University, and is the author of several studies examining the relationship between Biblical Israel and the surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East.  During his time at the Institute, he worked on his book, Reflections of Empire in Isaiah 1-39: Responses to Assyrian Ideology.

His recent publications include:

 

Ziv Rubinovitz 's (Winter - Spring 2016) research interests are divided in two: one is international security, within which he studies U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy, and geopolitics and its place in the international security discipline. His other major research interest is Israel Studies, in which he studies aspects in Israel's foreign policy and specialize on the Israel-Egypt peace process and U.S.-Israel relations. During the academic year as a Visiting Researcher at the Azrieli Institute, he was studying the rise and decline of the autonomy plan, 1967-1982. He also gave a talk for the Institute about Obstacles on the Road to Peace.

Since his time at the Institute, he has co-written (with Gerald M. Steinberg), Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism (Indiana University Press, 2019).  In addition, he co-published (Elai Rettig) the following article, "Crude Peace: The Role of Oil Trade in the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Negotiations", International Studies Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2018): 371-382. 

In 2020, he became the Israel Institute Teaching Fellow at Sonoma State University.  He previously published the article, "Blue and White 'Black September': Israel's Role in the Jordan Crisis of 1970". International History Review 32, no. 4 (2010): 687-706. 

Yakub Halabi (2014-15) finished his B.A and Master's degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in economics and international relations. Then he pursued Ph.D. degree in international relations at the University of Denver, Colorado. Dr. Halabi taught international relations between 2001-2010 at the University of Haifa and the Western Galilee College in Israel. In 2011 he joined the Political Science Department at Concordia University as LTA at the rank of Assistant Professor to teach international relations. Dr. Halabi has a major interest in democracy and democratic peace in the Middle East, political economy of the Middle East, and Israeli foreign policy, Israel-Palestine relations, and politics of the Palestinian Authority.  Currently, Dr. Halabi is teaching international students at Haifa University and Western Galilee College.

Some of his recent publications include:   

Ilan Danjoux is an affiliate assistant professor at the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies (2015-16 & 2016-2017). After receiving his doctorate from the University of Manchester, he joined the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a postdoctoral fellow where he used political cartoons to anticipate the outbreak of the Second Intifada. He later joined the University of Calgary as visiting professor of Israel Studies where he was awarded the Teaching Excellence Award for courses on the History of Zionism and Narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His current research uses political cartoons to investigate Israel's reaction to terrorism, the role of emotions in International Relations and the cartoon’s ability to predict election results.  He is the author of Political Cartoons and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has contributed to Yedioth Ahronot, Zocalo Public Square, Jewish Museum of Vienna and the Israeli Cartoon Museum.

Alan Dowty (Spring 2015) is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.  He is a graduate of Shimer College (B.A., 1959) and the University of Chicago (Ph.D., History, 1963).  He has taught at the Hebrew University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Calgary, where he was the first holder of the Kahanoff Chair of Israel Studies, and has served as visiting professor at numerous universities including Oxford, Buffalo, Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Shimer College.  He has published numerous books and articles on the Arab-Israel conflict, Israel, U.S. foreign policy, and other topics, including basic texts on Israeli politics and the Arab-Israel conflict. He has also served as President of the Association for Israel Studies (2005-2007).

Some of Dr. Dowty’s recent publications include:

 

Yitshak Cohen (Fall 2014) is an Associate Professor of law and senior faculty member at Ono Academic College, Israel. In 2012-13, he was a visiting scholar at Columbia University Law School in New York and in the fall of 2013, a Visiting Professor at McGill University.  He then joined the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies, in the Fall of 2014, as a Visiting Professor.

He is the head of several academic programs, among them Religious Leaders (Christian, Muslim, Druze and Jews) Interfaith LLB Law Program, the first and only class of this kind in the world. Cohen has been a member of the Israel Bar Association since 1999, and was ordained as a rabbi by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.

Some of his recent publications include:

 
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